John Edwards Admits Affair - Page 2

I think you are correct. I mean here is Clark Hoyt explaining why the Times was willing to run completely false and unsubstantiated sex charges against McCain. It is especially cool how he admits they didn't lift a finger on the Edwards story and spent weeks on the McCain story.

Dear Clark,

The first rule of getting yourself out of a hole, stop digging.

Well except for the fact that Edwards claims the affair was in 2006, and then spent 2007 and part of 2008 running for president, I guess I can see your point. If the NY Times had wanted to put the same effort on this as they did the McCain story they would could have broken the story during the primaries. It might have even helped their stock price.

This is why the rationales in the article by the editor are so terrible and unbelievable. The National Enquirer has been running with, adding evidence for and pursuing this story for the entire time frame of the presidential contest. Edwards broke the story himself AFTER he was done running for president and also AFTER he was tired of being chased down. He smartly figured that breaking it on the same day as the Olympics opening would give him about as much cover as one can hope. No one was going to remove the pictures of the opening ceremonies from their front pages to stick John Edwards up there.


McCain cheated on both his wives? I haven't read that anywhere and would like a link. Also an allegation is ridiculous if it is patently untrue and has no means of possibly being true. Edwards meets the archetype of what has cheated in the past and there is no reason to not suspect him to the point of being unwilling to even investigate the claim. I'm not saying they needed to run completely baseless claims, because that would be what they did to McCain, but to refuse to even investigate is bias.

Also everyone recognized the McCain NY Times story for what it was a bunch of dust being tossed in the air with absolutely nothing new and nothing substantive. Even the claimed concerns about the female lobbiest were from his first presidential campaign almost eight years prior.

I just love the reasoning there. We are investigating something that happened eight years ago that was a dead end so we can regurgitate it along with something that happened 20 years ago. However we can't pursue a story about Edwards at the time it is relevant. When when we finally do have to report on it because he discloses the information himself, we want you to all remember this is old news and not relevant to anything now.

Edwards has been slimy in all his dealings from studying poverty at hedge funds, to having his own people work for his poverty center, to taking the wife to Wendy's for the cameras each year. It is hilarious for the Times to call anyone who touches McCain a lobbiest and anything done on his behalf a gift and, again just ignore the fact that major portions of Edwards staff were conveniently "hired" at his poverty center in between his campaigns. It stinks of that typical double-sided standard that is applied called bias. On Republicans it is cite whether true or not and follow the money. On Democrats it is, well we don't want to follow the money because he has such good ideas and causes and of course don't really pursue or report on it, even when it is substantiated.

McCain was never found to be corrupt. What are you talking about? That was the whole point. Nothing has been found and so they put a bunch of old allegations together and tossed them up like dust hoping people would be blinded for a bit.

Regardless of how bad you want to toss Edwards under the bus, he is a former senator, the last VP candidate and was a recent candidate for President of the United States.

I guess that means Al Gore is a nobody as well. He fits the same criteria.


If know one knows then why bring it up? Oh wait... baseless accusations again.


So you bring up that which you do not care about. Interesting. Actually the article is nothing like you portray. First lobbying isn't illegal. The letters McCain wrote were not illegal. The article makes it clear that the worry was that people would investigate the lobbying and find the claimed relationship. It was a very long winded means of bringing up the relationship but that is what it was about.


I would call the passage of time with no evidence and also both of their denials to be pretty good grounds for certainty.


McCain ran behind for quite a bit of time. This story was printed in February of this year and had the timing of trying to damage McCain after he was far enough ahead to put the race out of reach, but still within the time frame to leave any second choice as weak. Just because it didn't do that doesn't mean that wasn't the purpose. The story was junk. Edwards is certainly finished now but before this he was still going to be speaking at the convention. He was a high profile face for the party.

I think I'll let Edwards have the final word on this.

John Edwards on Bill Clinton in 1999:

I think this President has shown a remarkable disrespect for his office, for the moral dimensions of leadership, for his friends, for his wife, for his precious daughter. It is breathtaking to me the level to which that disrespect has risen.

I don't call it coming up eight years later as never coming up again. Call me crazy that way.


This is a very long-winded way of justifying the fact that you have alleged (again) things that are not true. McCain was never found guilty of a change and was cleared. The very link you posted notes that. I get that you want to buy the pretense of the NY Times for bringing up an 8 year old allegation substantiated by anonymous sources to revisit 20 year old allegations that ended in McCain being cleared. You buy the spin. For myself and everyone else that condemned the Times article it stinks of the same type of bullshit that has dropped the stock price of the Times into the toilet, shrinks the circulation and leads to yet another round of layoffs.

People dont buy the news from an organization that doesn't report it.


I forgot. You were talking about that definition of "typically corrupt" that involves doing nothing wrong and nothing illegal.


It doesn't focus on any angle. It is a bunch of baseless charges from all manner of directions and all manner of time frames all dumped into a bullshit article. The reasoning doesn't even make sense. Being self-confident means you might break the law or cheat or not notice the imagery that would suggest these things because... hey look a pretty bird! It doesn't name a single source.

It is nonsense. It is crap. Thanks for tossing it out there so we can all try to forget what a shit John Edwards is and how he was never nothing even when he was something,

This does bring up an interesting and funny twist in my mind though. How terrified is anyone of actually being asked to be the VP? I mean the last two have been Lieberman and Edwards. It appears to be a curse of some sort. Even Gore who made out better than most would still be cursed based off how 2000 went.


It is hilarious and desperate to characterize a piece that doesn't list a single source who is on record about their "concerns" as a solid piece.

When the hell did concerns become news anyway? Editorial fodder sure, but it isn't news.


Oh I forgot. The Times can put a team of reporters to work for weeks to air out "concerns" but can't lift a finger to investigate an affair that a candidate in the primary process lied about.

Oh but those.... concerns... they could be really important concerns even though they are only about "typical corruption found in career Senators" so they are.... typical concerns and thus are newsworthy. They aren't illegal. There aren't charges. There isn't a relationship. There are... concerns.

Yep... sounds like a solid piece.


Ahahahahahahahaha.... it is a false show of incorruptibility and we can show this by airing concerns from anonymous sources for our solid story.


It's out there. He was a former candidate, Senator and the last VP nominee. He also endorsed Obama when he jumped out.

john edwards convention

I can see the response now.

"Those articles are all childish and idiotic!"

I'm talking about the word never meaning never.

This is the statement that was addressed.